China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) has undergone a staggering transformation, to become a more mobile and high-tech military force with increased number and variety of missions at home and abroad, in addition to its traditional focus on contingencies in the Taiwan Strait. Increased missions have included disaster and humanitarian relief, United Nations peacekeeping operations, counterterrorism, cyber security and anti-piracy. This volume explores the direction the PLA will take in pursuing its new missions, and how those missions affect the evolution of the PLA's objectives and capabilities, whether new PLA doctrines will emerge, and how they will affect the security of the Asia Pacific and beyond.